Celebrating Brenda Fajardo

Words Portia Placino
January 9, 2025

“Abaw Inday Indi Man Pag Patami”, 1992, 48×32 inches, acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of JL Diquit and JCB Gallery.

Brenda V. Fajardo’s life and art offer a perspective deeply immersed in Philippine art history—including the struggles and nuances of women artists. She was a feminist in practice, albeit it took decades to recognize and accept the label. Even with the founding of KASIBULAN in 1987, it was not purposely a feminist statement made, but rather a group formed by women to foster a creative space for fellow women. It went beyond the scope of fine arts to include textiles, bags, and other useful objects, and more importantly, community engagement. Her unfolding career gives insight into the undercurrents of Philippine art history.

We started planning for a Brenda V. Fajardo exhibition a year ago, as one of the first projects I wanted to pursue for the JCB Gallery. Along with Tin-aw Art Management, we had to wait for the right time, especially with several of her works on loan for different exhibitions around the globe. Our hearts were collectively broken when she passed away weeks before the exhibition was about to open. There was a question of whether we would open as planned or delay the exhibition for a later date. Considering several factors, we decided to open the exhibition in the week we had planned and one day after the traditional forty days of mourning. Typhoon Kristine delayed the exhibition opening—but eventually, the gallery’s door opened to students, faculty, artists, and community members.

“Nag-aaral Si Laura at Celia Di Tulad ng Iba”, 48×32 inches, acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of JL Diquit and JCB Gallery.

Celebrating Fajardo’s life and work felt like a homecoming within the Philippine Women’s University. She spent her basic education at the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School and Philippine Women’s University High School. The Tin-aw team found memorabilia from her early days and a few progress report cards from the time she had spent here, inviting us to reflect on her moments as she showed an early interest in the arts. She also took art lessons from Araceli Limcaco Dans and printmaking engagements with Manuel Antonio Rodriguez Sr. Through the decades, she engaged in different artistic collaborations with the gallery, especially during the tenure of Karen Ocampo Flores and Noel Soler Cuizon in the gallery.

The gallery cannot claim an attempt at a retrospective because of the limitations of the space. However, the modest space invites an intimate contemplation of Fajardo’s practice. She moves from printmaking, to painting, to watercolor and back again through the decades. Her reimaginings of Philippine history, epics and legends, and women and their roles and the positions they occupy in society are ever-present in her works. Yet just as important are her perspectives and viewpoints of the world were her emotions and experimentations in the forms she was engaging with at each point of her projects.

It has been fifty years since her first solo painting exhibition at Kalinangan ng Lahi Gallery in Quezon City in 1974. The timing, though unintentional, reflects the ebb and flow of time in Philippine history and Fajardo’s practice. Her prints from the 1970s have strong linear qualities and intricate movements. At the time, there was limited access to presses, and planning was important in creating editions. Yet it was also a more affordable medium for experimentation. The decade was turbulent, as the country was trapped in an authoritarian leadership and dictatorship, with critical creative practice threatened. It was also a decade when women in the arts became a focal point of feminist discourse, particularly after Linda Nochlin’s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? essay was published in 1971. Locally, Filipino women artists, including Fajardo, engaged in printmaking, creating a burgeoning feminist artistic moment from the 1970s to the 1980s. She, alongside Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Ida Bugayong, Julie Lluch, and Anna Fer eventually founded KASIBULAN (Kababaihan sa Sining at Bagong Sibol na Kamalayan) in 1987, the first women artists’ collective in the country and Asia.